Unix-based imagers

Part of the libewf library package, ewfacquire can create evidence files in the EnCase and FTK Imager E0* (EWF-E01) and SMART s0* (EWF-S01) formats. ewfacquire calculates an MD5 hash while the data is being acquired. Ewfacquire provides support for byte swapping of media bytes. This is useful for dealing with big endian media on and little endian architectures and vice versa. It also has intelligent error recovery.

Part of the AFF system, aimage can create files is raw, AFF, AFD, or AFM formats. AFF and AFD formats can be compressed or uncompressed. aimage can optionally compress and calculate MD5 or SHA-1 hash residues while the data is being copied. It has intelligent error recovery, similar to what is in ddrescue.

A program that converts and copies files, is one of the oldest Unix programs. I can copy data from any Unix "file" (including a raw partition) to any other Unix "file" (including a disk file or a raw partition). This is one of the oldest of the imaging tools, and produces raw image files. Extended into dcfldd.